


Something Is Off (I Feel Like Prey).

by everybodyhasroots



Series: ASOIAF Drabbles & AUs [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arya Stark is Nissa Nissa, Azor Ahai, Background Jon/Dany, Character Death, F/M, I made myself sad, Jon Snow is Azor Ahai, TPTWP, it’s up to you, this could be sibling relationship or romantic really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyhasroots/pseuds/everybodyhasroots
Summary: "You have to end it," she tells him in a voice heartbreakingly small. "You have to.""I will," he tells her, squeezing her hand like a lifeline. As if it's him who's dying.It's not enough. "Promise me," she whispers, voice weak in her bed of blood. "Promise me, Jon. Promise me.""I promise." The word sticks in his throat on the way up. By the time he spits it out, she’s dead.





	Something Is Off (I Feel Like Prey).

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this to my wattpad, but I figured I’d post it here too since Jon/Arya gets a wider reception. This isn’t actually what I think will happen in relation to Azor Ahai and TPTWP prophecy, just a *fun* scenario I daydreamed up and then couldn’t get out of my head.  
> Title is from ‘Prey’ by The Neighbourhood.

He finds himself alone, clouded by ash and snow with a burning sword on his lap.

He raises his head; the night is dark and white with a winter that seemed to have lingered decades, but no stars dot the sky. He sits in the ruins of the capital, buildings indistinguishable black masses all around him, smoking and blackened, warped and collapsed. Is it ash or snow that drifts down into his hair? Both, he supposes. 

Somewhere to the east, a dragon roars.

Which one, which? He closes his eyes. It matters not. The dragon screams again. 

So many dead. He had thought... but how foolish he'd been. He'd been told, hadn't he? The red woman, red and terrible and red, she had told him just before the noose tightened. The stench of Shireen's burned body still hung thick in the air and in the eyes of his men, and Melisandre gazed down at him without remorse, without fear, scarlet hair barely moving in the vicious wind. Her terrible dark eyes had glinted at him.

"Winter is here, Lord Snow. Azor Ahai sacrificed the one he loved the most, to end the long night," she told him from the gallows. "You will do the same."

He had heard the sharp intake of breath behind him; his silver queen stepped forward, to stand beside him and glare up at the red witch. Oh, when her violet eyes burned like that, it filled him with cold. She was sharp and poisonous as wildfire, her skin moonglow in the dawn light.

"I do not intend to die for any red prophecy," Daenerys told her, and Melisandre inclined her head.

"I would expect nothing less, from Aegon the Conqueror's blood," returned the red witch. "But fortunately, you won't have to."

Dany's brows furrowed. "But you said-"

"You are his blood, and his love," Melisandre acknowledged. "But Nissa Nissa was not killed because she was Azor Ahai's lover, or his family, or his wife. She was the one he loved the most."

And then, _then_ the dread had filled him, filled him like he night he died, and he never felt the fourth knife, only the cold, _stick them with the pointy end..._

He had turned, felt Dany do the same. Together they stared at the girl standing behind him, her arms clasped behind her back and a look on her face that Jon couldn't quite decipher. The girl was short for her age, her hair dark on her shoulders, her eyes grey like polished metal. _My grey,_ Jon had thought, stricken. Those eyes were wide, her mouth parted slightly as she stared straight back at him, dark brows furrowed. It hurt so much to look at her, like gazing into the sun. 

_I will not. I will never._

He gives Melisandre his answer with the slam of his sword; the rope slices, and her body jerks, caught at the neck. He has her burned, afterward.

But her words stay with him, never letting go. And Arya starts to avoid him. He goes into her chambers one time to look for her, and finds that she has put a bunch of blue roses in a glass jar on her window. He wants to cry when he looks at them, but he doesn't know why.

_Little sister_. He used to call her that. She was still little, underfed and short, barely up to his chin, but the name didn't feel right anymore. He still mussed her hair, sometimes, and she still glared at him with those storm eyes and poked him in the chest. She still had her Needle, after all these years. 'Stick anyone with the pointy end, yet?' he'd asked her the night he found her again. The laughter had died from her eyes, leaving them sad and shadowy. 'A few,' she'd returned, and then he asked her something else because he couldn't stand the sadness on her face.

And now... it is so dark, so cold. He lost sight of Daenerys hours ago, or was it days, and he hasn't seen any of her three dragons in all the time they've been here. He fumbles for Longclaw with numb hands. His gloves are gone, he realises as he stands. Bodies crowd what once were streets. Men he knew and men he didn't. Mothers and babes and elders, healers and smiths and soldiers, all pale, frozen corpses jammed against burned buildings, their skin smoking and blackened thanks to Daenerys's sweep of the city atop Drogon. He can barely see through the ash.

He has to do it. His fingers flex on the hilt. _The Night's Watch takes no part._ Wolf, crow, or dragon? He looks around, agonised. _Winter has come, with fire and blood,_ he notes. _Little sister._ She was the only one who called him brother. Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister? He spins, looking for her. The smoke is thick as he stumbles through the city. Duty is the death of love, duty is the death of love, love is the death of duty... 

He can't do it. He stops, squeezes his eyes shut. She was so small when he'd held her all those years ago, a tiny thing. His fingers flex on Longclaw's hilt. He'd been just a boy then. 

_Kill the boy,_ Maester Aemon tells him sharply. _Kill the boy, and let the man be born._

In the end, because of course it is, it is she that finds him.

He is kneeling, when she does. She sits down beside him. The ash in her hair looks like snowflakes, and her eyes are wide and cool as shadow as she gazes at him. 

"Arya..." His voice is choked, hoarse. He feels fourteen years old again.

"Stupid," she tells him, her voice unsteady. "Should've done it before." She nods to his sword. He jumps.

"I..." They both know what is about to happen. He shudders, eyes stinging. "I can't."

"You have to." She grabs him, so fast he doesn't even see her move. Squeezes his hand. Her eyes are shiny, sparkling like silver. "Look at all the dead. This is only the beginning."

"But-" He tries, desperately, to think of a way out of it. But no red fires burn for him now, no Lord of Light guiding him to another path. There is only dark, only cold. Arya gazes at him. A tear slips down her face.

"It's alright," she smiles. Sadly. "I want this. I want this." Jon's face crumples, his tears spilling. Even they feel like icewater on his skin. 

"Don't cry, stupid," Arya tells him, crying. She sniffs. "It's going to be alright. Look, we'll do it together." 

Her tiny arms help him lift Longclaw. The steel gleams blue. She shudders as she painstakingly puts the point to her chest. "You remember where the heart is?" she asks him, and he _sobs._ His hands are shaking. He's just a boy.

Arya's hands find his, bare skin. He feels the warmth of her, finally he feels something other than that crushing cold, and he gazes at her. "I love you," he tells her, knows she already knows. She nods, her mask finally cracking, but she doesn't look scared, just sad.

"I love you, brother," she whispers. _"Valar morghulis.”_

Her hands twitch over his as they help him sink the blade deep into her chest.

There is no room for her to scream, only gasp; her eyes grow wide, and more tears spill out, and Jon weeps as Longclaw gapes out of the other side of her, his little sister, Arya Underfoot. There is still life in her. She gropes blindly for his hand.

"You have to end it," she tells him in a voice heartbreakingly small. "You have to."

"I will," he tells her, squeezing her hand like a lifeline. As if it's him who's dying.

It's not enough. "Promise me," she whispers, voice weak in her bed of blood. "Promise me, Jon. Promise me."

"I promise." The word sticks in his throat on the way up. By the time he spits it out, she’s dead. 

His head drops onto her's as he sobs. She is still warm, the only warmth in this seventh fucking hell, and his voice is hoarse and dry in the silence. 

Somewhere in front of him, unseen to the prince who was promised, who's eyes are shut tight and filled with tears, a sword drenched in Nissa Nissa's blood catches light. 

In the ash and smoke of the long winter, Azor Ahai damns every god to hell as he blindly draws the burning sword.


End file.
